US Special Operations Forces have stepped up attacks inside Pakistan’s lawless tribal agencies in part of an effort to prevent the next major attack inside the United States, senior military and intelligence sources told The Long War Journal.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, said reports that the Bush administration is focused on “getting Osama bin Laden,” the elusive leader of al Qaeda’s global network, are overblown.

“Getting bin Laden would be nice, and it would clearly be a victory, but at the end of the day, al Qaeda’s network will still exist,” one source told The Long War Journal. “We need to take down that network to stop the next attack on US soil. Al Qaeda is more than bin Laden.”

The cross-border raids are designed to disrupt al Qaeda’s training camps and safe houses that aid in preparing for attacks against the West, sources say. The US is also targeting al Qaeda’s Taliban allies in Pakistan, such as the powerful Haqqani family in North Waziristan and the Taliban forces of Mullah Nazir in South Waziristan.

“The Haqqanis, Nazir, Baitullah [Mehsud], Faqir [Mohammed], and others in the tribal areas not only facilitate attacks against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, they play a critical role in facilitating attacks against the West by providing safe havens and sponsoring camps that train foreign terrorists,” a military intelligence source said.

Many of the major post-Sept. 11 plots and attacks against the West have been traced back to Pakistan’s tribal areas. Western Arabs and South Asians have traveled to Pakistan’s tribal areas for approval, guidance, training, and support to conduct their attacks.

“We believe the next major attack will be carried out by someone carrying a Western passport,” one official said, clearly worried at the security situation in northwestern Pakistan. “It is imperative we stop the next [Sept. 11] attack. This is what we are trying to do.”

The intelligence officials agreed the writ of Pakistani state is absent from Pakistan’s tribal areas and much of the Northwest Frontier Province. The deteriorating situation has forced the US to step up its strikes.

“[The decision to strike at the camps] is the best in a series of bad options,” one intelligence source said. “If we do nothing, al Qaeda festers and we’ve failed. If we wait for the Pakistanis to take care of this, it won’t happen,” the source stated, expressing frustration at the lack of cooperation and initiative on the part of the Pakistani government and military. “If we strike, we risk destabilizing the new government. But Pakistan is hardly stable and northwestern Pakistan is enemy territory.”

“You might as well paint the entire Northwest Frontier Province red,” one senior military intelligence source said, referring to the map used by The Long War Journal that tracks the hot spots in the Northwest Frontier Province.

US intelligence believes al Qaeda has regenerated its capacity to strike at the West by rebuilding in Pakistan’s northwest. There are currently 157 training camps and “more than 400 support locations” spread throughout the tribal areas and the settled districts of the Northwest Frontier Province, senior intelligence officials speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Long War Journal on Aug. 13. This number does not include Taliban camps and support locations in Baluchistan province.

Targeting al Qaeda’s external operations

The US military has launched 18 cross-border strikes inside Pakistan this year, according to numbers compiled by The Long War Journal. Attacks have skyrocketed over the past three weeks. Ten strikes have been carried out since Aug. 31. The US carried out 10 cross border attacks in Pakistan during 2006 and 2007 combined.

While the sources refused to provide specific details on the targets in Pakistan due to operational security concerns, a look at the strikes inside Pakistan this year shows that several of the targets clearly were involved in the portion of al Qaeda’s network designed to strike at the West. Many other of the targets support al Qaeda and Taliban operations inside Afghanistan.

The first major strike against al Qaeda’s “external operations” network took place in the town of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal agency on May 14. The missile strike killed Abu Sulayman Jazairi, a senior Algerian al Qaeda operatives who western intelligence sources described as the operational commander tasked with planning attacks on the West. Fourteen others were killed in the strike, including several members of Jazairi’s staff.

Jazairi succeeded Abu Ubaidah al Masri, a senior al Qaeda operative who served as al Qaeda operations chief for global strikes. Ubaidah is thought to have died of an illness. In addition to being al Qaeda’s external operations chief, Jazairi also was a senior trainer and an explosives expert. These skills enabled him to directly train operatives for strikes in the West.

Khabab served as the chief of al Qaeda’s weapons of mass destruction program, known as Project al Zabadi. He is best known for running a training camp at Derunta in Afghanistan, where he conducted experiments on animals to determine the effectiveness of chemical weapons. Khabab was also a master bomb-marker, and passed his skills onto his associates.

The third strike that can be directly traced to al Qaeda’s external operations is the Aug. 30 attack on an al Qaeda safe house in the Korzai region near Wana in South Waziristan. The target of the strike was a known al Qaeda safe house, locals later told the Pakistani press. Five were killed in the attack, including two Canadians of Arab origin. The men held Canadian passports.

Map of the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. Hangu is the latest district to fall under Taliban control. The government signed peace agreements in the red agencies/ districts; purple districts are under de facto Taliban control; yellow regions are under Taliban influence.

Targeting the Pakistani Taliban

Of the fifteen other strikes, most can be directly traced back to the Haqqani Network in North Waziristan and Taliban forces run either by Mullah Nazir or Baitullah Mehsud.

The US has conducted seven strikes against the Haqqanis in North Waziristan this year. The Haqqanis are closely allied with the Taliban and al Qaeda, and have close links with the Inter-Services Intelligence. One of the strikes killed Abu Laith al Libi, al Qaeda’s senior commander in Afghanistan, in a compound in Haqqani’s tribal areas.

The Haqqanis, led by legendary mujahideen commander Jalaluddin, run a parallel government in North Waziristan and conduct military and suicide operations in eastern Afghanistan. Siraj Haqqani, Jalaluddin’s son, has close ties to Osama bin Laden and is one of the most wanted terrorist commanders in Afghanistan. The Haqqanis also actively recruit foreign Muslims to conduct suicide attacks in Afghanistan.

Nine strikes have been carried out in South Waziristan in regions controlled by Mullah Nazir and Baitullah Mehsud.

While many Pakistan analysts have portrayed Nazir as a “pro-government tribal leader” because of his opposition to Uzbek fighters settling in his tribal areas and his rivalry to Baitullah, a closer look at Nazir shows he is committed to the Taliban and al Qaeda cause.

Nazir openly supports al Qaeda and its leadership, and admitted he would provide shelter to senior al Qaeda leaders. “How can I say no to any request from Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar under tribal traditions, if they approach me to get shelter,” Nazir asked the Pakistani press in the spring of 2007. Arab al Qaeda operatives help finance Nazir’s operations. He also openly supports the continuation of the jihad in Afghanistan and trains and provides fighters to support operations in Afghanistan.

Baitullah is the overall leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, an amalgam of local Taliban organizations throughout the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. He is viewed as one of the most dangerous Taliban leaders in Pakistan. His forces fight inside Afghanistan and he has vowed to assist al Qaeda in attacking Western governments. He has been behind a two-year terror campaign in Pakistan that has claimed thousands of lives.

The US struck a Taliban safe house in the town of Makeen in South Waziristan on June 14 in an attempt to kill Baitullah. Makeen is Baitullah’s home town.

Questions about whether the attacks will continue

The recent spate of attacks inside Pakistan have caused political turmoil inside Pakistan. The most controversial strike inside Pakistan occurred on Sept 3, when US forces conducted an air assault in a border village in South Waziristan. More than 20 Pakistanis were killed in the attack. The US stated Taliban fighters were killed in the action, while the Pakistani government claimed only women and children were killed.

The incident prompted political leaders to make promises to defend Pakistan’s borders, while the military issued orders to open fire on US forces crossing the border. A purported US raid was thwarted by the Pakistani military on Sept. 15. The government also briefly closed the vital Torkham border crossing point in Khyber to NATO traffic for one day as a warning to the US. More than 70 percent of NATO’s supplies flow through the Torkham border crossing point.

Yet the US has conducted six attacks inside Pakistan since the Sept 3. raid. The latest attack occurred just hours after Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, left Pakistan vowing to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty.

US military and intelligence officials wonder how long the strikes can continue. The Pakistanis may get serious and close the Torkham and Chaman crossing points to NATO traffic for extended periods. The strikes may cause the current Pakistani government to collapse, leaving a political vacuum that can be filled with Taliban sympathizers such as Nawaz Sharif.

“We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” one official said in desperation.

13 Comments

Excellent report, thanks so much, Mr. Roggio.
Re the strikes and the possible blowback from Pakistan:
“We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” one official said in desperation.
—-
Understood. All things considered, I’ll take being damned as opposed to being attacked.

Bill,
Why wouldn’t President Zardari want the guys who killed his wife eliminated? One would think that the U.S. could find common ground with Pakistan’s leadership on this point. Couldn’t they have Pakistani military officers at the UAV control center in Nevada authorize the individual strikes on AQ and the Taliban to at least give their army’s imprimatur and thereby diffuse Pakistani public criticism? Obviously, Pakistanis are not of one opinion on AQ and the Taliban. Nevertheless, a clear majority would have elected Bhutto who was decidedly anti-Taliban and pro-US. What am I missing here?

Cordell:
You are making several poor assuptions:
-There is one coherent control structure that is the Pakistani government.
-Those elected to the government control the government.
-Pakistani government controls the Pakistani army.
-Being anti Taliban means you are pro US.
-A politician is free to do what he feels is in his personal interest.
-A politician says in public is what he believes in private.
-A newspaper reports facts accurately becasue they are not the tools of any particular faction
All are poor assumptions

Re: Cordell at 4:23
What if this Pakistani Officer at the UAV center that you suggest just says no to any attacks? I doubt if we would give veto power to an entity that is riven with indecision and/or conflicting allegiances. What if he picks up weaknesses in our surveillance capability and relays it back home? Do we allow foreignors with potentially hostile contacts in other sensitive locations?
The Pakistani government has ample tools to make our situation even more difficult if they really want to pressure us to stop our actions. That they are not doing it already may mean they really are not as opposed to our actions as they may wish to appear to the folks on the street.

c jorden
The real answer is we dont know.
Dont know who controls them. Under what security arrangement. What our intel is that confirms control. What our backup plan is if we think control is about to be lost……

Re: Buff52- at 6:06
Even if the Pakistani army did not interfere, we do not have enough boots available to occupy the whole Nortwest Frontier/Tribal areas. We need indigenous forces to hold areas while our limited forces would move on to clear others. That is why we need a Pakistani government willing to work directly with our assets to solve the problem. We can help them establish control in areas but we need them to hold it or the bad guys will come right back from wherever they went to temporarily. — It is not even clear that the Pakistani army would be willing to do even that at the present time.
I believe based on past experience, unless they change their modus operandi, the Al Queda affiliated groups will wear out the patience of the Pakistani people and some government will come that is willing to seriously work with us. In the meantime, we should secure the border as best we can and build the Afghan army to help.
If Al Queda stages another spectacular attack on our soil out of their safe haven in Pakistan, our united public outrage may be enough to persuade the Pakistani government that the price of not cooperating will be too high and allow major operations with at least nominal assistance. If they do not we might threaten to take the Pashtoon tribal areas and give them to Afghanistan to control. Obviously, that would not be pretty at all.

KW6-4; You’re on the right track. We cannot tolerate attecks from the tribal areas in Afganistan or elsewhere. Involving Afghan troops in going after bad guys in the tribal areas where the Paks are afraid to go is a great idea. India is an ally of Afghanistan. Indian troops in Afganistan assisting NATO would ge a great help politically as well as on the ground. I hope we’re involving them in contingency planning in case the Paks collapse and the Taliban and AQ threaten to take over supply routes or nukes.

I would not be surprised if the U.S. is initiating another round of conversations with the Pakistanis of the ‘soft ultimatum’ variety.
Something along the lines of,”Here is the intelligence showing that AQ et al is plotting attacks against the U.S. from YOUR ‘sovereign’ territory. You have two choices, you can allow us to operate without actual resistance in the NWFP now to take the bad guys out, or, you can frustrate us now and take the risk that another 9-11 attack occurs. If that happens your country will essentially be dismembered for the forseeable future. We can tolerate your public whining and moaning if you need that as political cover, but any Pak forces that engage our units or assist AQ will be considered enemies and treated accordingly.”

“I believe based on past experience, unless they change their modus operandi, the Al Queda affiliated groups will wear out the patience of the Pakistani people and some government will come that is willing to seriously work with us. In the meantime, we should secure the border as best we can and build the Afghan army to help.”
This is a great insight KW. AQ has shown an amazing ability to alienate even the most sympathetic populations in relatively short order. I would only differ in that we should have no illusions that the Pak govt or the people at large will work with us any time soon. Instead, we should look to the Pashtun tribal leaders, some of whom have already begun to form anti-AQ militias. Like the Anbari sheiks, we need to figure out a way to give the Pashtun elders enough military/financial/logistical support so they can stand up against AQ reprisals. There is no doubt that many of these tribal areas hate AQ and their ilk but they will continue to pay AQ lipservice as long as they have no viable means of resistance.

I think the comment, “damned if we do, or don’t” says it all. Its been long overdue waiting for the P-stani’s to do something. Why not use those F-16’s they have to bomb the camps, the number which has risen from 30 in May to over 160 now. They did NOTHING. Took our money though. Thier are reports of tribes forming lashkars, running AQ/T-ban outta town, burning thier houses. I would like to know more about this. So, wat do you know about this Bill? Can the readers get some info on this militant backlash? This is SF area of expertise. Just want to know a little about this “movement”. Any info Bill, or anyone else? Thanx, Robert

By the way, Iam with STEVE-O on this. I would rather be damned than attacked. Has anyone noticed the P-stani gov. almost always say “civilians, women and children were killed”…that is getting old. I read somewhere that the militants were re-dressing thier dead dog comrades as civilians. LIARS. $10 BILLION got us a cadre of liars. I would rather err on the side of force than risk doing nothing and have an attack that produces mass casualties.